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And none could say they were surprised: on #Ferguson

I keep needing to remind myself of something: I have liked every cop I’ve ever known. The number’s not large, mind you; four, perhaps five people, one of whom’s faces I can remember clearly but whose name has escaped me. At least one is a Facebook friend who may read this. Alternate universe me actually is a police officer; if you Google search my real name most of the results you’ll get are for the other guy since I’m as diligent as I can be about keeping my name off the Web.

But as much as I want to generalize, I keep having to remind myself: I know cops. I am friends, or at least cordial acquaintances, with two of them. They aren’t all bad people, as much as it frequently seems like they are. They’re just embedded in a system that encourages them to be bad people, and if…